HOLD FAST SEPTEMBER 18–21, 2019
We would like to first begin with an acknowledgement to the First Peoples; Mi’kmaq, Beothuk, Innu, and Inuit, of these lands, Ktaqmkuk, Nitassinan, Nunatsiavut, and NunatuKavut, that we live, work, and create upon. HOLD FAST recognizes and supports the rights of Indigenous communities in their efforts towards an Indigenous sovereignty and reclamation of stolen voices across Turtle Island. We see, hear, and admire your powerful work. Thank you for allowing us the privilege to work alongside you.
Welcome artists, local community, and visitors alike to Eastern Edge’s HOLD FAST Contemporary Arts Festival 2019!
HOLD FAST is a celebration of contemporary art practice held annually in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, HOLD FAST is St. John’s longest running and only festival dedicated to contemporary art in the province. HOLD FAST events are free and open to all. The four-day festival of contemporary art will launch on Wednesday. September 18th at Quidi Vidi Brewery, continuing with workshops, fancy artist talks, cocktails, and the Art Crawl main event, an all-ages creative extravaganza.
2019 Featured Artists
Ethan Murphy is a photographer born and raised in St. John’s, Newfoundland. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography Studies from Ryerson University. His work links identity and place by reflecting on the psychological impact of Newfoundland’s rural environment. Murphy’s work is concerned with a fluctuating perspective acquired from leaving and returning to the island that enables him to renegotiate his connection to its remote areas. Using photography as a mediator, Murphy reconciles his relationship with identity and loss while examining the Newfoundland landscape post cod moratorium. His photographs function as personal documents that combine urban influence with a rural perspective. Murphy has exhibited internationally, was awarded the New Generation Photography award in 2019 and will be showing at the National Gallery of Canada this year.
Lucas Morneau is an interdisciplinary artist from Corner Brook, NL, receiving his BFA in Visual Arts at Memorial University – Grenfell Campus in 2016, and his MFA at the University of Saskatchewan in 2018. As The Queer Mummer, Morneau deconstructs gender norms and challenges heteronormative attitudes still prevalent in Western society.
Arianna Richardson is a sculptor, performance artist, and mother from Treaty Seven territory (Lethbridge, AB). Richardson most often works under the pseudonym, The Hobbyist, employing hobby-craft techniques to work through an investigation of ubiquitous consumption, gendered labour, waste, excess, and spectacle. Richardson holds a BFA (2013) in Studio Arts from the University of Lethbridge and an MFA (2018) from NSCAD in Halifax, NS. She was awarded the Roloff Beny Photography Scholarship in 2012 and the Alberta Arts Graduate Scholarship in 2016. Her work was recently featured in the December 2018 issue of Performance Research, “On Generosity”.
Craig Francis Power is an artist and writer from St. John’s. His work has shown at galleries throughout Canada as well as the US and PRC. He is the author of three novels, with a fourth on the way, and has written extensively about contemporary art for journals in Canada and the United States.
As a creative practitioner, Teresa Connors has traversed many fields of artistic practice in the fine arts; creative technology and coding; installation, interactive and sonic arts; acoustic/electroacoustic composition, film scoring and performance. Her current practice-based research explores nonlinear audiovisual installations in a process termed as Ecological Performativity. These works explore the relationships of environment, material, and process, and are derived from an intensive data-gathering procedure and immersion within the respective environments.